How to eat

How I eat is not something I typically consider; I’m usually much more focused on where, what, and when I eat.

Eating out here in KL, it is unusual to be given a knife; typically a fork and spoon fill your needs, and chopsticks are often an option as well. In food courts, hawker centers and casual restaurants you will rarely get a napkin, although usually a sink is available to wash your hands before and after eating.

I went to lunch with my Mandarin class last week, to celebrate passing level two and to welcome a new teacher to the staff. We went to Little Penang Cafe in the Suria mall, a place that is pretty reliable for decent food and is always hopping at mealtimes. There were six of us, and the ethnic mix was interesting: Chinese-Malaysian, Korean, Chinese Muslim, Laotian-Canadian, Libyan, and yours truly, the token American. Lin, our teacher who is Chinese-Malaysian, was encouraging everyone to try the different specialties, but most of the table ordered the fried rice (a halal dish). I went with a spicy noodle soup, and Lin had char kway teow, a stir fried noodle dish. Some forks and spoons were delivered to the table – at least in Malaysia, you’d normally eat fried rice with a fork and/or spoon, and eat noodle dishes with chopsticks. At one end of the table was a big canister of chopsticks, and Lin asked for a set, so I turned and asked for two: one for her and one for me. She was quite surprised that I was comfortable enough to tackle my noodle soup with chopsticks and a soup spoon, and jumped up to take a picture to document my immersion into the culture! I think for her it must have been a little like watching a monkey type.

On the other end of the spectrum, I met Grant for lunch on Friday (no Mandarin class in observance of Good Friday, go ahead and try to figure that one out). It turned into lunch with him and two coworkers: one is a local and the other is his Indian colleague also here on contract for the project. We went to a mamak cafe looking for a good banana leaf meal. I loved this place, just a little corner space open to the air, crowded with small tables and people looking to enjoy a leisurely Friday lunch before heading back to the office to finish out the week. I never saw a printed menu, but once we had secured a table a smiling guy came over and told us the chicken briyani was very good, and we all agreed to try it. Our places were then laid with a large piece of banana leaf, and a quartet of dipping sauces were presented to the table. Individual stainless steel pots of briyani came out, filled with a chicken leg, a hard-boiled egg, and mounds of fluffy seasoned rice. We each had a small ladle to portion food out onto our leaves, and then…I realized there was no silverware. Ok, no problem. Grant’s coworkers were completely comfortable with this, and assured us that we’d figure it out and if we couldn’t get the hang of it could always ask for a fork and spoon. We’d washed our hands (handy, handy sinks!) and the short tutorial was to push the rice together into a little ball with your fingers, and then to bring it towards your mouth and sort of flick it in. My technique wasn’t quite that clean, more like smushing together a clump of rice that I balanced on my fingers and then leaning forward over the banana leaf to shove it off my fingers with my thumb into my mouth, but I was able to eat my fill and have a great time doing it. I think it counts as a success! And did I mention how handy the sinks were when I finished eating and had fingers covered in curry and saffron?

With eating methods like this, we’re entertaining everyone we dine with – talk about dinner and a show!